


true north

by EzzyDean



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8731642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyDean/pseuds/EzzyDean
Summary: time and time again Kageyama returns, not to a place, but to a person.  that's how it's always been.time and time again, Tsukishima leaves his window open.that's how it will always be.(written for TsukkiKage week on tumblr)





	1. day 1: Fantasy

It’s a dream that comes to him more often than not these nights - and some days too, when his mind starts to wander and his focus goes a bit fuzzy.  It starts with the sound of his window sliding open, always sticking that little bit right away so a tiny grunt of exertion can be heard if you listen carefully, and a cool breeze sneaking in and wrapping itself over his exposed skin.  Gentle cold kisses of air working from his ankles to his knees, across his bare stomach, up his arms and finally sliding cool fingers across his already flushing cheeks.

The few times he ever mentions it to anyone this is when it deviates.  He tells them of his fantasy of how he kicks the intruder in the face and grins down at them through the window as he shuts it once again and locks it triumphantly and the story ends with him settling back into his bed under the window and falling into an easy, restful sleep under the starlight.

The truth is that he waits, breath frozen in his chest, for that familiar shadow to blot out the stars and slink into his room.  His bed dips under the pressure of one foot, and then the other, and then with an easy, graceful leap, the pressure is gone and his visitor is leaning over the end of his bed to tug the window shut.

Kageyama stares down at him then and sometimes the world changes in these dark nights.  Sometimes there’s a hunger in his eyes that makes Kei shiver.  Sometimes there’s an emptiness that’s even more frightening.  Mostly there’s just a curious sheen, like Kei is a favored puzzle to return to time and time again when Kageyama needs a moment of peace.  He feels it in the questioning fingers that trace unseen words and shapes along Kei’s arms.  Not hesitant but curious.  Not quite cautious but not quite bold enough to be completely careless.

There’s always a noise.  Sometimes a commotion, sometimes a creaking floor, sometimes just a breeze tapping the window just right.  Then Kageyama is gone.  No lingering smoke or scent or touch.  Just.  Gone.

 

“Having trouble sleeping again, King?  Oh, sorry.  Princeling.”  Kei corrects himself with a smirk.  Kageyama grumbles something at him, eyes tired and posture heavy under his delicate prince’s crown.  “What was that?”

“I asked why you constantly ask questions you already know the answers to.”

They make quite a picture, he knows; the distant and harsh prince and his coldly savage adviser-in-training, always at odds with each other.

“Because,” he says softly and to anyone nearby he’s sure his posture and tone sound threatening but no one dares to step up to stop him.  “I know for a fact I didn’t invite you inside.”

“Yet you leave your window unlocked,” Kageyama replies, voice just as dangerously low as Kei’s.

“Who am I to deny the prince what he wants?”  Kei straightens as Kageyama’s older brother approaches them, all golden smiles and perfectly fluffed hair, with his own adviser on his heels.  He bows to them both and excuses himself.

“The same person you’ve always been.”  Kageyama doesn’t shout but his voice reaches Kei all the same.  Kei’s fingers press the five point star at the base of his throat.  He doesn’t need to be anywhere near Kageyama to hear his voice.

_My true north._


	2. day 2: Fall

The world wavered and shimmered, a hazy mix of light and color and sound that sent his mind reeling.  Everything blurred.  There were words, even some from his own lips, but he can’t recall what they were.  People.  Motion.  Idle chatter.  Darkness creeping in like fog.

A yawning chasm between him and the rest of the world.

He stares at the retreating backs as the ground beneath his feet crumbles.  Emptiness rushes up to meet him.

 

Something nudges his shoulder and he peels his eyes open to darkness.  The tiniest pinpricks of stars high above him barely give off enough light to see the foot tapping impatiently against his shoulder.

“You’ve always been shit at falling gracefully.”  Tsukishima sounds bored.

It was early morning when he had fallen.  When the rest of his world had turned on him.  When did he get to the gardens?  What had he done in the hours since then?

“Okay Princeling.  Enough moping.”  Tsukishima prods at his shoulder again with his foot.  “Get up already.”

“Don’t call me that.  That’s not what I am anymore.  You were there.”

Even as he hit his knees in shock he had felt Tsukishima’s presence behind him.  Tall and scornful, refusing to bow.  A haughty challenge that could have gotten them both killed.

Tsukishima’s hand hangs lifelessly above his face.  The pale fingers seem so far away in the dimly lit night.

Tobio reaches for them anyway.


	3. day 3: Fairy tale

High trees stretch out further than either of them can see, a dense canopy that lets just enough light in that they know its still daytime but that’s about it.  The air is cool here, hushed like they’ve stepped into a sanctuary of sorts.  It makes Kei shiver uncomfortably.  Sanctuaries have never really been a place he belongs.

“If this were a fairy tale there would be a unicorn waiting for me around that next tree so I could ride back home.  Probably show up with the sun setting behind me.  All epic and stuff.”  Kageyama’s voice carries back to him, a little stilted and fuzzy in this strange place.

“If this were a fairy tale I’m pretty sure we can both agree that I would have been dead years ago.  Evil adviser poisoning the mind of the innocent princeling and all that.”

Kageyama passes the next tree and stops and for a moment Kei’s heart lodges in his throat.  Because what if there is a unicorn waiting there?  What if there is a happily ever after waiting somewhere at the end of this story for Kageyama?  What then?

He steps up to Kageyama.  To his own disgust he’s cautious about it, like he doesn’t quite want to look.  Kageyama glances over his shoulder, gives Kei the tiniest of smiles, and shrugs before continuing on.  He grabs Kei’s sleeve and drags him along before he can get a proper look into the shadows.

Kei can’t shake the feeling of being watched and the hushed air feels like a judgement is about to be declared.

Kageyama’s fingers tighten on his sleeve - Kei hadn’t even realized he was still holding it - obviously willing Kei to just follow his lead.  It’s one of the few times Kei listens to him and a dozen steps later he hears a crow cawing high in the trees.

Judgement passed.


	4. day 4: Home

This part of the forest is not a serene sanctuary, but it is comforting nonetheless.  At least for Kei.  Who knows where they are now finally.

“If you keep leading us in circles I’m going to just sit down and wait for you to wind up back here again.”

He stops next to a tree that looks perfect to nap under.  Just the right amount of sunlight filtering through the trees, a soft bed of mossy leaves right at the base, some nearby stones and roots that would hide him from any danger.

“Do you want to lead then?”  Kageyama snaps and Kei smiles.

“Sure.  Because I, unlike you, know exactly where I’m going.”

Kei sets off at a quick pace, nothing quite like the pace Kageyama set when they first entered the forest, but definitely faster than they had been wandering.  But he doesn’t miss Kageyama’s grumbled, “Oh and just where is that,” even with the crunches and crackles and creaks of their increased pace.

He takes them between some trees, skirts a creek for half a mile and then crosses it, and ambles over some smaller boulders.  It’s a path he knows well and could follow in the dark half asleep - he knows because it happened once - but if you don’t know where to look for it you’d be lost for days.

Kageyama stumbles behind him and Kei does his best not to snap.  It’s been a long time since Kageyama’s had the freedom to roam the woods and climb boulders and jump across wet rocks.  Not that Kageyama isn’t fit.  He’s just… soft in the woods.  Kei reaches back for him and pretends he doesn’t see the relieved looks on Kageyama’s face when he looks up, almost panicked, and sees Kei’s hand waiting for him.

“Wouldn’t do for my Princeling to sprain an ankle on a wayward root.”

They slow down.  Pick their way carefully through the tall grass that starts appearing as the trees begin to thin out.  A crow caws loudly overhead as they step into a clearing.  Kei leads the way across it and into the next stand of trees without hesitation, even when he feels Kageyama startle at the charred ground, curiosity most likely gnawing at him to stop and inspect the damage.

“You asked where I was going?”  Kei finally asks as they approach another clearing.  Kageyama’s hand is still clasped in his and another time, another life, he might wonder at that.  Kageyama nods once.  Kei grins wickedly and tightens his grip on Kageyama’s hand. “I’m taking you back to my lair.  I am the evil adviser poisoning the sweet naive prince after all.”  Kageyama stares at him as Kei tugs him past the last trees and into a less charred, but still somewhat hostile looking clearing.  “I’m going home, dumbass.”

 

‘Home’ is not a word that Tobio thinks he’d ever think of to describe the charred clearing.  Even with the fairly new looking hut at the far edge of it and the obviously carefully tended flowers and herbs growing next to it.  But when he hears a voice cry out and watches Tsukishima be embraced by a woman that can only be his mother and then a man that is most likely an older brother, when he looks around again, and looks carefully, he thinks that he can begin to see how this place is Tsukishima’s home.  How this place helped shaped the man who led him here when it would have been so much simpler to just leave him behind like all the rest.


	5. day 5: Animals

Tsukishima isn’t stupid.  No matter how much Tobio likes to try and tell him that he is.  They both know it too.

So Tobio knows that Tsukishima has seen and heard them.  Maybe not all of them.  But enough of them to know they’re there and what they mean.  He’s not entirely sure if Tsukishima actually saw the unicorn back in the woods, saw the flash of white mane and those deep dark eyes watching him, watching them both as Tobio pulled Tsukishima past.

The crow, well, you would have had to be deaf to ignore it cawing and yelling high above them.  Its cry sounding strange in the dense trees and echoing strangely in your bones.

Tobio isn’t sure Tsukishima saw the snake curled among the rocks near the edge of the clearing, its muted ashen colors camouflaging it well enough that had Tobio not known it was there he would have stepped on it.  That one he left well enough alone.  He always has.

It’s been a long time since Tobio has been in the forest and the duties of a princely life aren’t the only reason.

It scares him a little.  That they watch him the way they do.

They watch him.  Protect him.  But they choose not to warn him when Tsukishima approaches him one day while he’s crouched at the creek near the clearing that Tsukishima calls home.  He doesn’t realize that Tsukishima is there until he’s pressing a finger against the dip of Tobio’s spine just above his waistband and Tobio nearly topples over in surprise.  Tsukishima doesn’t move his finger from the bottom of the snake’s tail even when Tobio glares at him over his shoulder.

“You’ve never had tattoos before,” Tsukishima says, matter of fact.

The ink in his skin burns at the words and Tobio doesn’t have to look to know that it’s darkening even now.

“I’ve always had them,” Tobio states in response to the way Tsukishima’s eyebrows raise as the crows on his shoulder blade fill in to completion.

“I’ve never seen them.”

“They’ve had to stay hidden.”  He can feel the wolf on his hip itching and stretching.  He wonders if any of them are ready.  He looks over his shoulder at Tsukishima still crouched behind him studying the darkening ink on his skin like it’s one of his beloved tomes of magical theory.  He wonders if he’s ready.  If Tsukishima is ready.

He takes a deep breath and pulls inside himself.  For a moment nothing happens and he worries that it’s been too long and the magic is gone.  That it too has abandoned him.  Then it surges and he nearly loses his balance as the crow bursts from his shoulder and takes flight.

Tsukishima stares at the crow as it soars into the trees and caws at them.  Tobio cringes at the angry tone and apologizes as best as he can through their link.  It’s not that he’s wanted to keep them suppressed.  It wasn’t his choice at all and it certainly wasn’t his own magic that had locked them away.

“And here I thought you couldn’t do anything that would actually surprise me,” Tsukishima murmurs.


	6. day 6: Fire

“And here I thought you couldn’t do anything that would actually surprise me,” Kei murmurs.  He watches the crow overhead fly around and swing back towards the clearing.  They can almost see it from here.  Kei thinks about holding his hand out for Kageyama, pulling Kageyama to his feet, the long walk through the woods, that serene little temple of trees they had passed through when Kageyama had gripped his sleeve in his fingers like it was a lifeline, Kageyama slipping his hand into Kei’s and trusting him to lead him somewhere safe.

Maybe it’s time to go back to all those nights with his windows unlocked and those cool fingertips tracing patterns on his skin.  His fingers drift up to press at the base of his throat.  The five point star resting there feels like it’s burning his skin, itching to be freed.

The crow caws loudly, angrily, impatiently.

“Come on,” Kei finally says.  If Kageyama is going to insist on keeping Kei as his true north then he should at least know just who is determined to keep returning to time and time again.  It’s nearly dusk, which is perfect.

Kei leads him back to the clearing and makes him wait at the edge, just a few steps behind the charred border.

He takes a deep breath and stops.  He stops running.  He stops hiding.   He stops fighting.

His fire jumps into action immediately, eager to flare and play and devour the air around him.  It crawls along his arms, drapes around his neck, and licks at his fingers like an overeager puppy.  It curls into his palm when he raises it and he watches the flames twist into a ball, crackling and hissing against the darkness.

Kageyama slowly approaches him, the moth to Kei’s flame, and pauses a step away, hand outstretched.

“Will it hurt me?”

“It’s a ball of fire, Princeling.  What do you think?”

Kageyama’s eyes narrow a little at the name but he meets Kei’s gaze and rephrases his question.

“Will you let it hurt me?”

Hands outstretched, windows unlocked.  A dark star on his throat.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Kei whispers as Kageyama’s hand inches closer and closer.

The flames flicker with the beat of his heart.

 _My true north._  He thinks.   _Welcome home._


	7. day 7: Time

Time, as it will, moves forward.

Nothing grows in the charred clearing.  Well, not quite nothing.

 _They_ grow.

Kei’s flames grow more vibrant with each passing day.  Tobio’s animals grow more fierce each time he calls to them.  Kei’s fire grows to instinctively keep Tobio unharmed.  Tobio’s animals grow to protect Kei like he was theirs all along.

Kei grows used to Tobio’s fingers lingering at the base of his throat, a warm comfort instead of a piercing reminder.

Tobio grows used to Kei’s steady breath, now always beside him instead of lingering behind.

They may grow comfortable, in the tiny bedroom, in the small hut shared by a family with large hearts.  But they never grow weak.

Time marches on and one day soon they will march as well.

They will return.  With their shoulders and shadows having grown much larger since the night they hurried into the woods.

Until then time will continue rolling and they will continue to grow; stronger, closer, and more comfortable in their powers.

Tobio’s finger traces the five point star at the base of Kei’s throat while his wolf curls up beside them.  The cool breeze from the window makes him shiver and Kei scoffs as he draws the blanket higher.

“Why do you never shut the window if you’re always so cold at night?”  Tobio’s voice is muffled into Kei’s shoulder.  “What was that?”

“I asked why you constantly ask questions you already know the answers to.” 

“Because,” Kei turns onto his side and tucks Tobio’s head under his chin.  “I know for a fact I didn’t invite you inside.”

Tobio slides his hand up and presses his palm against Kei’s chest.  He can feel Kei’s steady heartbeat under his fingertips.

“Yet you leave your window unlocked.”

“Who am I to deny you anything?”  Kei runs his fingers through Tobio’s hair.

“Mine,” Tobio whispers.  “Same as you’ve always been.”

Kei presses his finger against the dark five pointed star resting just behind Tobio’s ear, hidden beneath his hair, and smiles wickedly in the dark.

“True north,” they whisper together.

 _Soon_  the wind seems to whisper back as it rushes through the clearing and the crows high in the trees echo the word back with their cries.   _Soon._

Soon it would be time.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come yell at me over on [tumblr](http://ezzydean.tumblr.com) about KageTsukki (or just about any other ship!)


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